


Reading Glasses

by plant_boi_potter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Angsty Undertones, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Slice of Life, Swearing, reading glasses, sex mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:22:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23987440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plant_boi_potter/pseuds/plant_boi_potter
Summary: Draco hasn’t asked what they are to one another, even though it should be blindingly obvious.Maybe one, or both of them needs a different prescription.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 65





	Reading Glasses

Draco had owned flat above the bookshop for a number of years before Potter came back into his life, quite allusively at that. 

He’d been happy enough, alone with his tightly packed bookshelves and whistling kettle but it had been lonely, sometimes. Surrounded by lives he couldn’t live. Not really.

He half-listened to the kettle clank a bit as he cracked the spine of whatever novel he had at hand - he rarely cared about the title, just being whisked into a fictional world was good enough for him.

The words blurred together and he heard himself huff in annoyance, biting back another irritating sound that cut through the bliss of his concentration.   
  


The motion of taking his reading glasses from his breast pocket was fluid. It was early evening, the shop was closed and the chair groaned under his uncomfortable shifting. Even though he didn’t have cause to worry, he didn’t like the idea of vulnerability the weakness in his eyes brought. 

Was this how Muggles felt?

A small bell jangled dimly. It sort of sounded like the front door but Draco ignored it. 

“Malfoy?” Harry’s voice was hesitant, peering around the bookshelves as if he was expecting a confrontation with a startled unicorn. 

Draco closed the book he was reading as slowly as he could manage without looking undignified.

“I’m reading.” 

“I can see.” Harry snorted. Although he didn’t comment, Draco couldn’t help but notice the way the man pushed his own glasses further up his nose.

* * *

They’d met up for drinks. That’s how it’d started, a large group of post-war kids with no one to lay their self pity on but each other. 

“Sounds depressing when you say it like that.” Draco had said. 

And Harry had laughed. A decisive snort that dissolved into a smattering of underhanded giggles. Inappropriate, when he looked back on it, the way it had all started, haltingly, over an over abundance of alcohol and gallows humour. 

He’d said friendship, but it wasn’t really. Not in the conventional sense anyway. 

Draco told Harry as much in bed that morning. Calling him unconventional just made Harry laugh as he’d pressed his stomach into Draco’s, forehead resting neatly between the crook of his neck and his shoulder.

“You’re one to talk about convention.” Harry had moved to prop himself up on an elbow, shifting in such a way that Draco groaned where the mattress dipped.

Since they’d started this - whatever _this_ was - a number of unconventional things had happened: including Draco buying the shop underneath him outright. 

Including Harry coming there most nights instead of going back to Grimmauld Place. Sometimes popping in in the morning too, if he could. 

Lately, he’d started staying long enough that Draco sometimes forgot Grimmauld existed. He was no longer coming to the bookshop he was-

 _Coming home_ , Draco’s useless brain supplied.

Draco had mumbled something back to him, indignation cutting below the halfhearted note in his voice as he tried to seek out Harry’s warmth while simultaneously not moving more than three inches. He didn’t really know whether Harry was talking about his book obsession or their relationship when he’d called Draco unconventional. He wasn’t about to ask now, not this far into… whatever _this_ was.

* * *

Technically, Draco should have been in bed by now, he’d finished cashing sales and pottering around in the semi-functional on-site kitchen - which was really just a back room with a slightly broken kettle. 

_Usually he would be_ , he thought ruefully but Harry had chosen to stay the night. Again. To be there when he woke in the morning. He wasn’t sure when that had become a regular occurrence but Draco wasn’t going to complain, in fact, he’d make the most of it and he’d told Harry as much.

“Make the most of it how? You laze in the children’s section while I make you tea and cake?” 

Amusement danced in Harry’s eyes as Draco shifted his weight onto his elbows, interlacing his delicate fingers before resting his chin neatly between his knuckles. 

“Yes, that’s precisely it.” Draco blinked up at him sleepily as Harry moved none-too-gracefully towards the table so he was bent over him. “Although I’d rather eat at the table.”

Silvery wisps of hair collected around Draco’s face. He was so used to being taller than Harry that the disadvantage he was suddenly at made him blush. 

“Your bookmark is on the floor.”

“How-”

“It fell off the table..” Harry missed a beat, tearing his eyes from Draco to check the clock above their heads, the one mounted above the brick wall of the fireplace.

“-two and a half minutes ago.”

Draco hadn’t made up his mind on what to think about Harry’s newfound love for meticulous timekeeping.   
  


“You’ve rubbed off on me.” Harry said in a way of response. He then ruined it by adding “or it could have been Hermione.” 

Draco wrinkled his nose at that. “Didn’t you promise you’d make me food?” He said instead of addressing his disdain for being compared to Granger.   
  
While not unflattering in of itself, it would be different if it were Ron, or even _Pansy.  
_

 _Harry, though._ That was another matter altogether.

“And you didn’t think to tell me this before staring at me for a disturbing length of time?”

”About you rubbing off on me or the bookmark?”

He said it like a filler phrase, as though it didn’t matter, tossing it out into this space they shared like Draco wasn’t going to think about it for the next week in the same way he thought about what Harry said _and did_ to him constantly. 

”The bookmark.” Draco said, far too quickly - as the image of Harry bending him over the table he was currently sat at flitted unhelpfully through his mind.

...now _that_ was something he had to bookmark. 

Merlin, it was like the start to a bad porn. 

He thought he’d done a rather remarkable job of schooling his face into something that resembled outrage at being interrupted while pretending to read. 

Instead of porn, bad or otherwise, Harry said, “So, dinner?” 

Which, in Draco’s opinion was far more his thing. Or his stomach’s thing anyway.

The clock chimed six-thirty and Draco cursed Harry’s timekeeping as he was left to enjoy his-

“I’ll leave you to enjoy your lurid romance novels. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

Damn Harry through the veil and back. Saviour or not he was still _an_ _ass_.

Admittedly, Harry was much less of an ass when he was spooning bolognese over their spaghetti later in the evening.

“I rearranged one of your bookshelves a bit this morning.” 

Harry spoke in between bites of mince. “I can move them back if you’re not okay with me touching your stuff, I should have asked before...” He trailed off.

Draco smiled lopsidedly, trying for a smirk that he didn’t have the energy to conjure this late in the day. 

He decided not to point out the very obvious signs of Harry’s presence - in the shop and his upstairs flat. 

The man had gone to work this morning in mismatched socks because he’d chucked the other one in the dryer for Merlins sake! (The dryer that had only been installed because Harry wrinkled his nose at extended cleaning charms.) 

Saying all this, however, would have expended all of Draco’s excess energy, so instead he just said: “Better not have touched my Hans Christian Anderson or I’ll have your head.” He was trying for a joke but he just felt tired so it came out flat.

“Long day?”

”Yes.” He didn’t elaborate.

”Do you want to talk about it?” Harry tried but he was met with a shrug and a “not really.”

Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second before deciding to stand, leaning over the table in order to place a hesitant kiss at Draco’s temple. “Sorry.” 

“I also couldn’t find cake, so you’ll have to make do with transfigured, slightly over buttered crumpets.” He cleared their plates and whisked two more in from the back room labelled **Staff Only.** For all intents and purposes, it was a functioning kitchen, after all. 

“How do you fuck up a perfectly good crumpet?” Draco said while simultaneously stuffing the light spongy dough into his mouth. 

“Can’t have been that bad.” Harry grumbled, smiling slightly as Draco licked his fingers.

“I fixed your kettle by the way. It was one of the wires. You know.” He rotated his hand in a lazy arc, “Electricity and magic”.  
Draco knew very well that they didn’t mix, _thank you very much_. It’s why he didn’t go near the washing machine unless there was a dire circumstance. He looked down at the table, trying his best to glare a hole through it while thinking about Harry’s odd socks.

Harry admitted his success with the kettle with some joviality. His eyes lighting up as he watched Draco eye his mug very carefully before shrugging and leaning over to steal Harry’s half full mug left over from dinner. 

Harry laughed as Draco made a face that was a mixture of disgust and confusion. 

“It’s coffee.” 

“It’s cold.” Draco cast a heating charm on the tepid liquid before giving his own mug of tea a chance.

“It tastes like shit. My head hurts.” He said offhandedly, as if he’d just noticed, as if it hadn’t been pulsing slowly behind his temples since late afternoon, although, it was easing.

”I’ve been grumpy all day.” Draco gave Harry a weak smile. 

“You probably need stronger reading glasses.”

The words were like magic unto themselves. The last piece slotted into a long abandoned puzzle.It all made a sudden, awful kind of sense.The soft blurring of ink on creamy paper. The pain. 

“I’m coming with you to get them though.” It wasn’t a question. 

Draco raised his eyebrow. “Are you now?” He sipped his tea.

”If you want to look like Professor McGonagall, I’m not going to stop you.”

Harry did his best to hold in his snort as Draco coughed up most of his tea. 

He’d known they were old fashioned but _McGonagall_? _Really_? “Thanks. Any sex drive I would have had is now well and truly gone.” 

“Wait, what?”

* * *

Harry was there the next morning, as he always was now. Draco turned to look at him, the sunlight dapping his bare shoulders from the other side of the bed.

Instead of taking the hand Harry proffered, Draco traced the lines of his palm, his own fingers so pale against the creasing rivers of Harry’s-

lifelineheartlineloveline. 

God, he’d hated Divination. 

“Okay.” He said to fill the silence, looking anywhere but Harry’s face. In those moments leading up to what he could have said it was as if time stood still, even the ticking clock held it’s breath. 

He stared at Harry’s palm again and he almost asked Harry why his lifeline had a scar cutting through it but quickly thought better of it. Skeletons, he thought, should stay in closets. For now, at least.

The clock resumed it’s ticking and Draco breathed out, a sort of contented sigh, or maybe a sigh of relief.   
“So, I look like McGonagall and you’ve moved my bookshelves.”

”I said I was sorry last night!”   
  
Draco snorted at this but he said nothing else. 

Harry swallowed, forcefully. His voice was too loud for the intimacy of a moment he’d want to cherish.   
  
“I like you.” He looked up, counting the flecks of gold in Draco’s otherwise grey eyes. 

“Elegant, Potter.”

“I I also didn’t move your bookshelves. I knocked your bookshelves over.” He finally admitted, his hand jerking once, before deciding letting Draco play with it was more calming than running it anxiously through the tight ringlets of black hair at the nape of his neck.

“All of them?” Draco’s eyebrows disappeared to his hairline as he imagined the disarray of a multiple shelf pile up, blinking in surprise at the small, silent grief he felt for torn spines.   
He wasn’t angry though, accidents happened and the best you could do was fix things afterwards. He glanced at the heavy black lines on his arm before focusing all his attention back onto Harry.

“Not all of your bookshelves. One.” 

“One?” He still sounded sceptical. “Maybe you need new glasses too.”

Harry made a noise of noncommittal and Draco decided to owl someone about nearby optometrists.

“I said fixed it! I righted the shelf, sealed the broken edges and put the books back.” Harry rushed ahead before Draco could ask, stumbling over his words as he went. “They’re mostly in the right order. I did say yesterday.”  
“I used the massive book on the desk for reference. I’m really sorry Draco. I didn’t mean to tell you this late but I was thinking about-”

The word _us_ hung unspoken in the air, although it wasn’t the heavy sort of _us;_ thesort of us that came right before a break-up. This us was soft. A domestic sort of us. The finality to it more of a beginning than an end. 

“The directory?” Draco laughed. “Yeah, okay.” Draco hadn’t picked up on Harry’s stumbling, over the unsaid words caught in his throat. The only time, in all the years Harry had known him, that he wasn’t in some state of paranoia over the _what if._

Because, for once, Draco was looking toward the future. The what if was a more hopeful question. 

_What if this worked_?

He stopped tracing Harry’s hand, instead lifting his palm up to his cheek, leaning upwards to press a kiss to his lips, soft at first, before letting himself sink into the feeling. “I forgive you for moving my books.” Draco mumbled against his lips.

Harry let out a groan, pulling away reluctantly. 

“And the bookshelf?” He asked, almost in disbelief that he wasn’t about to be at the very least lightly scolded for such a mishap. Even if it wasn’t really a _mishap_...

Draco shrugged, as much as he could with one shoulder pressed into the mattress.

”I decided I wouldn’t yell at anyone for breaking anything accidentally because I’m not my father.”

* * *

Harry was almost bouncing on the balls of his feet as Draco struggled into a shirt, his arms flailing slightly. 

He didn’t ask for help, but Harry wasn’t quite _that_ dense. He pulled the hem of Draco’s shirt down an inch and suddenly it was okay again. 

“Alright, alright I’m getting up but I’m going to have to hold onto something or I’ll fall down the stairs.” Draco said through a bleary-eyed yawn while Harry pulled him to his feet.  
  
He really couldn’t understand why the man was so ecstatic at this time of morning, it was unreal. He was always either awake or asleep, seemingly with nowhere in between. 

Instead of offering the banister, Harry looped his arm around Draco’s shoulders, steering him down the stairs and out of the door that read **Staff Entrance.**

True to his word, Harry had patched up the bookcase and the books were more or less in the right order. Draco counted six that weren’t.

 _Classics_. His comment about Anderson the night before.

They were all placed in the middle of the third shelf in such an obviously ordered way, jutting out from their usual pushed-back state, that Draco couldn’t help looking at the spines. Intrigued, he fumbled for his reading glasses, cursing softly when he realised he’d left them on the nightstand. Not that they’d really do him any good. 

He plumped for running his fingers over the raised surface of the spines as he put it all together: the first letters of the last names screaming at him to understand, although by his smile, he felt like he already did.

Dickens

Anderson

Twain

Emerson

Morrison

Eliot

He said the names softly, then the letters, _date me?,_ one at a time as if the fantasy of it all would disintegrate if he spoke too loud, turning to Harry for confirmation.

“Please? I know it’s a childish way to-” Harry’s nose and ears coloured considerably, warmth radiating from his cheeks. 

Draco threw his arms around Harry as Harry struggled to maintain his balance. 

“...ask.”

As Draco’s feet left the floor all he could think about was the way he wished to be whisked into a fictional world, once apon a time.

He held onto Harry as tightly as he dared as Harry turned them both around once before setting Draco back onto the wood beneath his feet. 

He knew he could let go, but he just wanted to feel the warmth of Harry’s arms, the repeated rise and fall of his chest. The reminder they were alive and that everything might really be okay, despite his pesky need for stronger reading glasses. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a lot longer but I gave up, stuck it in my drafts and then promptly forgot about it.


End file.
